1. Hospitals

Most hospitals have mental health services which may include Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Social Workers and other professionals. Programs offered typically include:

Outpatient programs, where one comes to the hospital for mental health services;

Day treatment, or partial hospitalization programs, where a person comes for treatment for longer periods or more frequently, for more intensive therapy than one would receive from simply seeing an outpatient therapist or clinician;

Inpatient programs, where a person is admitted to hospital in order to provide a high level of supervision and care until the condition improves enough so that the person can be treated as an outpatient.

3. Outpatient/community mental health services

Outpatient Mental Health Services is where a person receives services by going to an office or clinic, without having to stay overnight in a hospital. Services can be "hospital-based", and delivered through a hospital, or they may be "community-based" and delivered outside of a hospital.

3.1 Walk-In Counselling

Walk-in counselling clinics provide counseling services, without a need to book a long time in advance. They can be helpful for many issues such as family conflict, stress, grief, depression, anxiety, relationship issues, separation, divroce or abuse. Most of the time, no appointment is required, though some clinics may require you to call ahead the same day to book appointments for that day.

3.2.2 Animal and Pet Therapy

Animal-assisted and pet therapy are types of therapy that use animals trained to provide affection and comfort to people in a variety of places including hospitals, retirement or nursing homes, mental health facilities and schools.

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3.2.3 Art Therapy

Art therapy is a way of helping people through art, and is provided by accredited art therapists. Painting, drawing and sculpting are common ways that help people to express themselves and heal. Unlike traditional art, the focus is on the process of creating the artwork rather than the final product.

3.2.4.1 Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP)

DDP is a therapy and parenting approach that uses what we know about attachment and trauma to help children and families with their relationships. When a child has experienced stresses such as trauma, this can lead the child to become disconnected from the important people in the child's life, and experience problems such as depression, anxiety and behaviour problems. DDP offers a powerful way to reconnect children to the people that are important, thus improving their relationships as well as problems with depression, anxiety and behaviours.

Unfortunately, there are no results for this heading. Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP)Suggest a resource

3.2.5 Behavioural therapies (including ABA and IBI)

Behavioural therapies uses different strategies to help a person learn life skills and more positive behaviours such as communication and social skills. Examples include therapies used in autism such as Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) and Intensive Behavioural Intervention (IBI).

3.2.6 Brainspotting (BSP)

Brainspotting (BSP) is type of treatment developed to help people with stress, anxiety and trauma.

It may be particularly helpful for clients where standard talking therapies have not been effective (e.g. when trauma has been too distressing to be talked about.)

Most of the usual ‘talking therapies’ (such as cognitive behaviour therapy, solution-focused therapy, etc) require the client to have a functional logical brain (i.e. ‘neocortex’) and emotional brain (i.e. ‘limbic cortex’). However with severe stress, anxiety and trauma, a person’s logical and emotional brain may be so overwhelmed, that standard talk therapies are not effective.

Brainspotting works on the ‘survival’ (i.e. ‘subcortical’) brain. Other types of subcortical processing therapies include eye movement desensitization processing (EMDR).

Brainspotting helps the brain process trauma, at a deep, subcortical level, which using focused mindfulness and specific eye movements, which allows the brain to heal from traumatic experiences.

Unfortunately, there are no results for this heading. Brainspotting (BSP)Suggest a resource

3.2.7 Coaching

Coaching is the process whereby a coach teaches and directs another person via encouragement and advice. The coach provides an individual with feedback, insight and guidance on achieving their full potential in their business or personal life. Coaches usually first help by defining goals, and then supports the client in working out a strategy to reach those goals, and helps the client stay on track.

Compared to counselling, coaching generally has a narrower focus; focuses on performance rather than underlying root causes; tends to be shorter-term; does not seek to improve underlying psychological problems; focuses on improvement on function in already well-functioning individuals.

Coaching is generally more suitable for individuals who are well-functioning to begin with, whereas counselling/therapy would be recommended for individuals who are more distressed.

3.2.8 Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is an effective type of therapy for numerous conditions such as depression and anxiety. CBT helps individuals by looking at negative thoughts and behaviour patterns, and changing those into more helpful coping thoughts and behaviours. CBT can be delivered by any health professional who has had adequate training in CBT, which in practice usually refers to psychologists, psychiatrists as well as some physicians and social workers.

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3.2.11 Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

EFT is a short term (8-20 sessions), structured approach to therapy formulated in the early 80's by Drs. Sue Johnson and Les Greenberg, shown effective for couples and families. EFT helps couples overcome negative patterns in communication by teaching them how to communicate underlying feelings and emotional needs.

3.2.12 eTherapy

eTherapy refers to therapy delivered online, through the internet. It includes websites that provide online therapy as well as communicating with a therapist using email, or online chat sessions.

Because there are so many websites that provide internet delivered therapy, we are not able to list all the websites out there, but rather focus on websites which are publicly funded, freely available and supported by evidence.

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3.2.14 Family, Marital, and Couple Therapy

A marriage, couple and family therapist specializes in helping concerns and problems in couple or family relationships. Marriage, couple and family therapy can be given by any professional that has sufficient training, which usually tends to be social workers, psychologists or psychiatrists.

Unlike traditional therapy where the therapist just meets with the individual, family counselling and therapy is where the therapist meets with the individual and one or more family members. The idea is that no matter what the difficulty is, others in the family are part of the solution and thus need to be involved in the therapy or treatment.

3.2.15 Group Therapy

Group therapy is a form of counselling/therapy, in which one or more therapists work with a small group of patients or clients in a group. Therapeutic benefits of group therapy include the interactions amongst group members, and having shared experiences with similar individuals.

3.2.17 Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)

Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) is a type of therapy that focuses on a person's relationships and connections with other people. Regardless of how a problem such as depression started, the problem is often maintained by ongoing stresses in a person's relationships. Improving and strengthening a person's relationships can thus be helpful, no matter what the difficulty.

3.2.19 Multisystemic Therapy (MST)

Multisystemic therapy (MST) is an intensive family- and community-based treatment program designed for children/youth who have serious behaviour problems, such as conduct disordered and antisocial behaviours.

Unlike many therapies which focus primarily on the child/youth (such as individual therapy), MST is 'multi-systemic' and focuses on various aspects of the person's life (such as home, school, community, and peer relations) to help the behaviour problems.

3.2.23 Play Therapy

Play therapy uses play to communicate with and help children. Play therapy is useful for children because they naturally express themselves for play, and because they may not be able to express themselves verbally (using their words) as would be required for other types of therapy such as "talk therapies." Play therapy can be delivered by any mental health professional that has received sufficient training in it.

In Canada, it is preferable (though not always possible) to have a professional who has official training approved by the Canadian Association for Child and Play Therapy.

3.2.24 Psychoeducational Assessment

When an individual has learning problems, it can be very helpful to have a psychoeducational assessment performed by a psychologist.

The usual first step is to speak to the child's school regarding the possibility of seeing a psychologist that works with the schoolboard. This is paid for by the schoolboard, however there are often long waitlists.

Sometimes there are community agencies (such as psychology training programs with a university) that can offer free, or low-cost testing.

The quickest way is to pay privately for a psychologist working in private practice. In Canada, a psychoeducational assessment costs approximately in the $1,000-$2,000 range.

In many cases, a parent's workplace may have a health plan that can pay for at least some of this expense.

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3.2.25 Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis helps the individual develop insight and understanding into their past, which hopefully may then translate into positive changes in the present. Most psychiatrists (and many psychologists) have psychodynamic training. Psychoanalysis is a more involved treatment, classically involving up to a few visits per week, for many years, and is delivered by trained 'psychoanalysts', who tend to be psychiatrists.

3.2.26 Solution-Focused Therapy (SFT)

Solution-focused therapy (SFT) focuses on empowering individuals to find solutions in their life by figuring out what a person's goals are, and supporting them to find ways to achieve those goals. Various types of professionals may have training in SFT, and may work in counselling agencies, or in private practice.

3.3 Day treatment programs

Day Treatment refers to an intensive type of outpatient services that is more intensive than standard outpatient services (e.g. seeing someone once every 1-2 weeks) but yet is not as intensive as an inpatient stay.

For children and youth, day treatment programs may occur at therapeutic school programs, or take place at hospitals. For adults, day treatment programs are commonly offered at hospitals.

3.5 Service coordination and case management

Case management is where a case manager meets with the client (an individual or a family) in order to find out what services are needed. Then, the case manager helps arranges for those services and supports in the community. Service coordination refers to the fact that the different services are coordinated in an efficient way to best help the person.

3.6 Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams

Assertive Community Treatment is a client-centered, recovery-oriented mental health service delivered by multidisciplinary treatment teams, designed to provide comprehensive, community-based psychiatric treatment, rehabilitation, and support to persons with serious and persistent mental illness such as schizophrenia.

ACT Team programs are for people who have not benefitted from traditional outpatient programs. Because one of the main goals is to help keep people living in their homes in the community (rather than in hospital), ACT programs are usually reserved for people who have had excessive, prolonged stays in hospitals.

Unfortunately, there are no results for this heading. Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teamsSuggest a resource

3.7 Self-help, Mutual Aid and Support Groups

Self-help, mutual aid and support groups are non-profit, voluntary organizations which provide support to individuals who share a common experience.

As defined by the International Network of Mutual Help centres, self-help groups are non-profit; open to members of the general public who share a common experience; meet face-to-face on a regular, ongoing basis, and are open to new members; provide mutual support through discussion and sharing of information and experiences. Members use their individual strengths to support each other, and can use their collective strengths to promote social change; Run by and for group members. Although professional (health care) providers may participate at the request of the group, their role stays that of a consultant.

The Canadian Coalition of Alternative Mental Health Resources is a National forum that embraces best practices, alternative programs, learning opportunities, knowledge transfer and resource sharing. more

3.8 Community Health and Resource Centres

Community health and resource centres provide a variety of health services to local residents, which often includes mental health services. Services provided by each health centre vary, depending on local community needs. Contact your local community health centre to find out about any counselling, groups or other mental health programs they might have.

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4. Group Homes, Residential Care and Supported Housing

A group home is usually a single-family dwelling for special populations that need a supervised living environment. Common examples include children and youth in care, individuals with developmental or physical disabilities, individuals recovering from substance abuse, teenaged mothers, or victims of domestic violence.